Losing the war on terror
I took five minutes over breakfast this morning to watch and listen to C-SPAN's coverage of the House of Representatives. Five minutes was about all I could stand.
The business of the day had not yet begun (at 10:00 in the morning - not a bad gig for $165K a year), so a gaggle of Democrats was standing up and giving one-minute speeches about what bad guys the Republicans are and how they, especially Emperor Bush, have botched the war on terror.
One gentlelady from California caught my ear by saying Bush and the (majority) Republicans have failed to pass many of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. She didn't think Congress should stop, for example, until every cargo container entering the United States in every port is being screened. Probable cause for such unreasonable searches be damned, of course; we're fighting a war on terror, don't you know, and the rules have changed - especially the rules set down in the Bill of Rights.
I turned off the TV and mused that the war against terror is being lost bigtime, for here's a roomful of politicians who are terrified, terrified enough to demand that every American be put in a bubble where we can be protected from every terrifying thing that man and nature can throw at us.
Funny thing, though: I don't see much fear among the everyday folks I meet every day. Life goes on even in the face of the one-in-a-million chance that we'll be killed when the next terrorist attack occurs one of these days or years. Why are these politicians so terrified? Why do they want us to be terrified?
Isn't the point of terrorism to make the victims so terrified they alter their lifestyles, cower and change their ways? If so, how long will it take these terrified politicians to figure out they're playing into the hands of the terrorists they imagine on every street corner? After all, they pass laws that alter our lifestyles (i.e., restrict our freedom) and encourage cowering.
The key question, of course, is why do the politicians want us to be terrified? The answer is obvious: Frightened people are more easily controlled. Career politicians live to gain control. If we are not terrified, the politicians fear they may lose control of us, and that thought terrifies them. The scariest thought, to them, is the outright fact that they can never control all of us all of the time, no matter how many controlling recommendations they pass into law.
So they skulk about Washington and skulk about their districts in constant concern that "we" are losing the war on terror. And they're right, because the vast majority of us aren't particularly afraid, not of terrorists and not of them. And that fact absolutely terrifies them.
The business of the day had not yet begun (at 10:00 in the morning - not a bad gig for $165K a year), so a gaggle of Democrats was standing up and giving one-minute speeches about what bad guys the Republicans are and how they, especially Emperor Bush, have botched the war on terror.
One gentlelady from California caught my ear by saying Bush and the (majority) Republicans have failed to pass many of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. She didn't think Congress should stop, for example, until every cargo container entering the United States in every port is being screened. Probable cause for such unreasonable searches be damned, of course; we're fighting a war on terror, don't you know, and the rules have changed - especially the rules set down in the Bill of Rights.
I turned off the TV and mused that the war against terror is being lost bigtime, for here's a roomful of politicians who are terrified, terrified enough to demand that every American be put in a bubble where we can be protected from every terrifying thing that man and nature can throw at us.
Funny thing, though: I don't see much fear among the everyday folks I meet every day. Life goes on even in the face of the one-in-a-million chance that we'll be killed when the next terrorist attack occurs one of these days or years. Why are these politicians so terrified? Why do they want us to be terrified?
Isn't the point of terrorism to make the victims so terrified they alter their lifestyles, cower and change their ways? If so, how long will it take these terrified politicians to figure out they're playing into the hands of the terrorists they imagine on every street corner? After all, they pass laws that alter our lifestyles (i.e., restrict our freedom) and encourage cowering.
The key question, of course, is why do the politicians want us to be terrified? The answer is obvious: Frightened people are more easily controlled. Career politicians live to gain control. If we are not terrified, the politicians fear they may lose control of us, and that thought terrifies them. The scariest thought, to them, is the outright fact that they can never control all of us all of the time, no matter how many controlling recommendations they pass into law.
So they skulk about Washington and skulk about their districts in constant concern that "we" are losing the war on terror. And they're right, because the vast majority of us aren't particularly afraid, not of terrorists and not of them. And that fact absolutely terrifies them.
posted by B.W. Richardson at
10:57 AM
1 Comments:
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
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